Crafting For Those Dedicated to Experimentation

Jimmy Beans Wool

I am working on the Beekeeper’s Quilt, the pattern is by Tiny Owl Knits and can be found on Ravelry. Each little Hexipuff is knit as an individual project, stuffed, and put in a basket until you have a sufficient amount to piece together for a completed quilt. I can knit about one hexipuff a day, due to time constraints and my very slow knitting. It will take about 580 Hexipuffs to make a quilt 5.5 Feet X 6 Feet. Since I like my quilts to be able to actually cover me this is the size I am aiming for. A 3 foot by 4 foot quilt would be 384 hexipuffs but I would consider that a very small quilt.

If I were able to knit a hexie every single day it would take me about 2 years to create the hexie’s and probably another year to piece it together. This would certainly qualify as a big project. Well, I cannot make a three year project easy on myself now can I? No! I decided that I was going to create two different hexipuff quilts. One will be made up of hexie’s that I knit from my own handspun yarn.

The second quilt that I plan on working on will consist of scraps of yarn, usually some fancy yarns that I will not purchase an entire skein of. For example JimmyBeansWool.com allows 20 yard samples of some of their yarns to be purchased. While I find myself reluctant to purchase a skein of Madeline Tosh (MadTosh) yarn for $25-$35 a skein, I can justify spending about $1.25 for enough yarn to create a hexipuff and a half. It really is still quite expensive, but it allows me to fool myself into thinking that I am being thrifty. I have also discovered that the MadTosh yarn is really exquisite to work with and creates a very pretty, silky puff. If I were really into clothing knitting I would certainly consider some of this. The yarn to the left is a thin sock yarn, that I might need to use a smaller needle if I want to knit the rest of my sample skein into hexie’s, and the right is the MadTosh yarn in Swimming Pool colorway.

I really enjoy knitting up these tiny hexies on my size 8 Dpns out of wood. I love how the needles work with the yarn, and I really enjoy working with my handspun so I get an idea of what works and what does not with my yarn.

For Christmas, and at just $10 each they are a steal, I was given a 3 month subscription to Jimmy Beans Beanie Bags. I have since then received my December and January Bags, both of which were an absolute delight. While there are instructions for a suggested project included, I have been using my Schacht Zoom Loom, purchased from Woolery, to create amazing squares. Those squares will eventually become a piece of either clothing or a scarf, I’m still working on figuring them out. Each bag, and it really is a woven cotton bag with a zipper, also comes with Soak samples to wash your projects and an accessory. In the December bag we were given a pom-pom maker and in January a wooden shawl closure.